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As she did, at Nomad’s three o’clock, a man tapped his phone and ducked behind the soldiers' station at the Palais.
The scaffolding above Elena shifted and collapsed. The area filled with screams. A dense cloud of dust rose, blocking the view of the scene.
“Cassie? Shit!” Nomad yelled into his phone.
He heard coughing, then the miracle of Red’s voice. “Down, not hurt.”
Elena was the only one of the three women under the section of collapsed scaffolding. But many others happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The man who had caused the collapse was pulling bags of cement off the victims. The three other men from the kidnapping joined in. Nomad knew they were trying to get to the ring.
From here, he didn’t know how this should play out. The idea was the ring would lead to a payday for the terroristsnotthe treasure hunters, and that payday would lead them to lifesaving information.
But what if Elena was dead?
Then what?
Nomad decided his play was to observe and then act.
Nomad watched as Red got herself to her feet and moved purposefully forward. As the bystanders and soldiers scrambled to help, they quickly formed a chain, lifting the building materials and passing them hand to hand. Out of the way, Nomad watched as Red used her body to block helpers, facilitating Simone’s grapple to get to Elena first. Nomad knew Simone had succeeded when she straightened and stumbled toward the taxis because the ring pin on his phone moved with her.
Brushing her dress to clean herself, Simone climbed into a cab.
As Red followed, she avoided Nomad’s gaze. But once in the cab, she asked, “Can you still hear me?”
“Copy.” He had to work to keep his communications simple and professional. Everything about this scene was counterintuitive.
“It’s not likely Elena’s alive.”
“I’ll stay with that,” Nomad said.
“I’m following Simone. She got hold of both Elena’s phone andthering.”
“I can verify both,” Nomad was watching his screen. “Both pins are moving.”
“I’ll follow at a distance to see what she’s up to. I don’t think Simone was involved with the collapse. She didn’t flinch before it came down, and she was cut. Her face is bleeding. Can you figure out how that scaffolding came down? And find out if Elena survived?”
“Wilco. Out.”
With all the hands at work clearing the scene, it quickly became apparent that the people under the scaffold had died. The task went from frenzied ant-like effort to solemnity as the bodies were moved to the sidewalk and laid side by side.
As the man with the broken arm blocked people, three men from the Austrian van—two with ugly jaw bruises the size of Nomad’s fist—lifted Elena’s body and carried her to the sidewalk where the other victims lay. Their acted-out grief allowed them to remove the rings from each of Elena’s fingers and pat her over for her phone.
Kamal’s treasure hunt had now killed six people that Nomad had heard about. He had to assume there were more bodies along the way. Kamal did like his deadly games.
The three men stepped back as the ambulances arrived and then walked away.
After taking a look at how the treasure hunters had collapsed the scaffolding, Nomad circled toward a different entrance to the Medina, feeling the weight of the tragedy.
So many had died right there, not twenty feet away, as he watched.
Red had survived the bombing of the courthouse by needing a bathroom break.
She survived the scaffolding collapse because she and Simone were four steps behind.
Four steps from death.
Four steps.